Volume 16, Issue 3


CAVEATS FROM KARLSRUHE AND BERLIN: WHITHER DEMOCRACY AFTER LISBON?

16 Colum. J. Eur. L. 337 (2010) Jancic Davor. PhD candidate, Institute of Constitutional and Administrative Law, Utrecht University, theNetherlands. This Article was finalized while I was a visiting researcher at the Department of Law of theLondon School of Economics and Political Science in 2009. This Article analyzes the evolution of the reasoning about E.U. democracy that the German Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG) has been shaping starting with the Solange I and II, Maastricht, and European Arrest Warrant cases and culminating with the Lisbon Treaty case. The BVerfG’s reasoning has often taken the form of caveats, whereby the BVerfG “warned” the European Union of its assessments […]


ADDING BITE TO A BARK: THE STORY OF ARTICLE 7, E.U. ENLARGEMENT, AND JÖRG HAIDER

16 Colum. J. Eur. L. 385 (2010) Wojciech Sadurski. Challis Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Sydney, Faculty of Law. My great thanks to Dr. Karine Caunes for her excellent research. The Article 7 mechanism of the Treaty on European Union fills a gap in the Union’s approach to human rights protection by setting up a system of early warning about the risk of breaches of rights in a Member State, and of sanctions in the event of a determination that such breaches have occurred. This Article traces the history of the discussions and decisions that have incorporated this mechanism into the TEU system and […]


KNOWING WHEN TO SEE IT: STATE ACTIVITIES, ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES, AND THE CONCEPT OF UNDERTAKING

16 Colum. J. Eur. L. 427 (2010) Niamh Dunne. Ph.D. candidate in Law, Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge. Professor Alison Jones provided helpful comments on an earlier draft of this Article. The concept of “undertaking” acts as a gatekeeper to the application of the substantive competition laws of the European Union, namely Articles 101 and 102 T.F.E.U. A functional approach to the concept, rooted in the notion of economic activity, has been adopted. Insofar as State activities fall within the concept of economic activity, a notion has developed in European case law that the substantive provisions of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union […]


STUDENT NOTE: THE TRANSPARENCY REGULATION IN CONTEXT: A PROXY FOR LEGITIMACY OR AN INSTRUMENT OF REGULATORY PRACTICE?

16 Colum. J. Eur. L. 465 (2010) Jan-Krzysztof Dunin-Wasowicz. J.D., Columbia Law School, expected 2012; Maîtrise en droit & degree in International Commercial Law, University of Paris I (Sorbonne), expected 2012; Master’s degree, Public Administration, Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po), 2007; European Studies undergraduate program, Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po), 2005. This Article joins a policy debate over the reform of Council Regulation 1049/2001 (the “Transparency Regulation”) which governs access to documents held by European institutions. The Transparency Regulation was enacted under the premise that its disclosure-friendly rules would effectively mitigate the democratic deficit of the […]


LEGISLATIVE DEVELOPMENT: THE TREATY OF LISBON: AN ONGOING SEARCH FOR STRUCTURAL EQUILIBRIUM

16 Colum. J. Eur. L. 521 (2010) Matej Avbelj. Ph.D. EUI, Florence, LL.M. NYU School of Law, Associate Professor of European Law, European Faculty of Law and Faculty of State and European Studies, Slovenia. This contribution analyzes the impact of the Treaty of Lisbon on the so-called “structural equilibrium” of European integration. Structural equilibrium is the European Union’s functional, but for obvious reasons not nominal, equivalent of a federal equilibrium in federal regimes. It stands for rules and principles that govern the relationship between the constituent entities of the integration—Member States and the European Union as a supranational level—so that the integration can achieve its selected […]